


"We're not hosting an intergalactic kegger down here."

by ShippenStand



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Attempt at Humor, M/M, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 11:25:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10570329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShippenStand/pseuds/ShippenStand
Summary: It's the SGC's Mardi Gras party, and they all work with aliens, so of coursesomeonehad to do Men in Black.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/gifts).



> Many thanks to mific for the inspiration and to amberdreams and Ivorygates and Mific for beta duties!
> 
> mific's full art is [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10543534)
> 
> Title is a quote from MiB.

“Happy Mardis Gras, McKay!” Mitchell said, smirking at him from behind dark sunglasses. How he could see in the dim lighting of the ballroom was anyone’s guess.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Rodney said, raising his voice a bit to be heard over the music. “That’s hardly a costume!”

“Pretty funny coming from someone dressed as, what, wiggly bacon?” Rodney snorted. Philistine. The worst thing about being on Earth was having to deal with Mitchell. Atlantis was out in the middle of the Pacific with a skeleton crew of Pegasus veterans and a whole lot of anthropologists. Rodney had argued, and won, that no technical people and only one gene carrier should be on the city when he wasn’t there. He was actually surprised he’d won. The gene carrier was Major Miller, and Rodney trusted him not to let the anthropologists blow up the city. Most of the Atlantis personnel were on leave or working temporarily in the Mountain to transfer technology.

“It’s a classic, Rodney,” Sheppard drawled, holding his arms out, a beer dangling from his fingers, glancing at Ronon and Mitchell. They had on nearly identical black suits and sunglasses, but held red cups instead of beer. Rodney had no idea how they could walk around in those things with only party lights in the big room. 

Mitchell grinned at him. “And we _do_ work with aliens every day.”

Rodney glanced around, surprised Mitchell spoke so openly in a public setting. True, the big room was full of SGC people and their _significant others_ for a Mardi Gras party. Apparently is was to make up for a Christmas party cancelled for some crisis before they’d brought Atlantis to Earth. People had complained because it was an adults-only party, unlike Christmas, but that was the only reason Rodney had come. No kids. “Men in Black is lame,” McKay said, crossing his arms over his harmonic wave costume. Along with the particles Radek Zelenka, Bill Lee and Miko Kusinagi were wearing, they were a hilarious parody of the harmonic function of a three-particle system. Kusinagi had a dance for them and everything. Okay, maybe that had seemed funnier at 03:00 this morning, but it was better than what he was looking at here. Ronon had a slight smirk on his face. Sheppard had his eyebrows raised. Rodney felt his defenses going up, so he went on the offensive. “That took you no effort whatsoever!”

“Not true,” Ronon said. “Took all afternoon to find the right sunglasses.”

“And buy a suit for Ronon,” Mitchell added.

“Yeah. I never had any ceremonial Earth clothes.” Ronon held out his arms and looked down at himself admiringly. 

Rodney opened and closed his mouth. Sometimes it caught him short, seeing his planet through Ronon and Teyla’s eyes. He’d never thought of a suit as ceremonial clothing, but it really was. “I’m sure it’ll come in handy for some ceremony later, but you can’t think you have a hope in hell at the costume contest.”

Sheppard reached into his breast pocket and held up a slim cylinder, and it flashed brightly, hurting Rodney’s eyes. “After we use this, the judges won’t remember any other costumes, so we’ll have to win.”

“What was that?” Rodney asked, blinking.

“Oh!” Bill Lee said, running up next to Rodney wearing what looked like an orange ball of yarn. “You got it!”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said, twirling the slim piece of metal through is fingers. “Standard issue neuralyzer.”

Rodney turned Lee. “You made that for him? Are you trying to lose the costume contest? Yarn?”

“It depends on whether they have categories or overall,” Lee said, shrugging. “Have you seen Lindsey? Hoo,” he said, shaking his head. “And yes, yarn. It signifies the movement of the subatomic particles that make up the main particle, and since yarn is twisted, it indicates _spin_. Subtle, right? Might put us over the top.”

“If the judges are physics geeks,” Mitchell said.

Rodney opened his mouth to say something to Lee, but decided against it. Lee’s joke wasn’t half bad. He turned back to Sheppard. “We are so going to beat you.”

“You go right on thinking that,” Sheppard said. He glanced at Mitchell and Ronon, and they stood in formation. “You never saw us,” he said, and flashed the light in Rodney’s eyes. 

It hurt as much the second time, and the flash was drawing looks. “Very funny.” Rodney stalked away through the maze of round tables, trusting Lee to follow, looking for the rest of his group and more of the punch Mitchell and Ronon were also drinking. Given the number of people with cups, it was popular, and he wanted to get his share. And if he had to dance, he might need a bit more liquid courage.

#

John watched Rodney and Bill Lee go. “He really thinks they’re going to win a costume contest with a physics joke?”

Mitchell leaned in. “It’s an SGC crowd. Anything can happen.” 

John looked up at Ronon, who looked pretty hot in that suit. Decades of practice made it possible to keep his hands to himself, but he was having trouble with his eyes. “Having any fun?”

Ronon took a sip from his red cup. He’d gone for the Bourbon Street punch, as had Mitchell. John stuck to beer. “We had something like this on Sateda,” Ronon said, “but this version’s kind of tame.”

“Costume parties a bit more raucous on your world?” Mitchell asked.

“More about the mask. Not knowing who anyone was,” he said with a small grin, glancing at John in a way John hoped Mitchell didn’t notice. “Or pretending not to.”

“More like Carnival in Venice?” John asked. “Anything goes?”

“I guess, whatever Venice is. It started when the population was low after one of the culls. Bit of tension release, bit of mixing up the gene pool. Might not know who you’re fucking.” 

John froze, but Mitchell just nodded. “That’s definitely more raucous than this,” Mitchell said, “if you go for that kind of thing,” Mitchell said with a wiggle to his eyebrows that suggested he might be persuaded. John took a step back. Mitchell hadn’t meant what that sounded like, looked like, had he? But he was still talking. “Might could be a way for, you know, without anyone asking or telling.”

“Mitchell,” John said, really not liking where this was going.

“Sure,” Ronon said. “It was also a way to find out if you were okay with women or men or both, without, you know…” Ronon shrugged. “Relationship. Never would have even thought to try with Melena. Turned out I liked lots of things.” He glanced at John with a grin that had only one meaning.

John’s chest constricted and he could feel the blood drain from his face. He needed to derail this conversation, and he was desperately worried that Ronon would out him to Mitchell. Sure the lights were low and the music fairly loud, but he could not understand why the conversation was going this way. “Guys…” he started.

“Guys. Girls. All good,” Ronon grinned.

“Now me, I like extremes,” Mitchell said. “Womanly woman or manly man. The whole androgyne, boy/girl thing doesn’t do it for me.”

John almost swallowed his tongue. Ronon and Mitchell were looking at him, and even behind the sunglasses he felt like he was a steak dinner and they’d been on MREs for a month. He was used to that hungry look from Ronon. He loved it in private. But here? John took a step back, trying to get words out. “Place and time?” he managed to say.

“Now’s good. My place is good. We could blow this popsicle stand,” Mitchell said. “Heh. Blow,” Mitchell laughed.

“Are you twelve?” Sheppard glanced around in a panic, hoping no one heard. 

Ronon’s voice rumbled in his ear. “What do you think, John? I could fuck you while he sucks you off.”

“Not here!” John whispered, trying very hard to not to think about it.

“I meant back at Mitchell’s place.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” He said. He and Ronon had their thing. They’d had their thing for a couple of years now, but they’d never so much as talked about it. The idea of suddenly—

“Why’re you so uptight, Sheppard,” Mitchell asked. John glanced over to meet a lazy, frankly appraising grin.

“I don’t know. We’re at a, you know, work party?”

“Brass is all upstairs having a poker game. Well, they call it that, but it’s one of _those_ meetings. Nobody’ll care,” Mitchell said. Then he straightened up, looking a bit panicked. “That’s a secret. You gotta keep the secret.”

“What is wrong with you?” John asked again, feeling Ronon’s big hand drop onto his neck, the fingers caressing behind his ears. John stepped away but Ronon trailed his fingers down John’s back as he moved. It really wasn’t dark enough for this kind of PDA.

Mitchell pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head. “Can’t see.” 

Even in the dim light, John could see that Mitchell’s pupils had narrowed into tiny dots in the center of his blue eyes. Ronon took off his sunglasses and jammed them into his hair. “Darker in here than it was.” He moved to drink from his cup, but John reached out to stop him. Ronon furled his eyebrows.

“It’s not darker. I think you’ve been drugged,” John said. That was bad news but it explained the conversation.

“What?”

“Both of you are spilling secrets.”

Mitchell looked at his cup and set it down. “Motherfucker.”

That was when the lights came up and the doors burst open. Men in mixed styles of BDU started filing in through the doors holding weapons. John’s practiced eye took in the fact that some of them looked military, but many of them had bellies spilling over their ammo belts, and some weren’t old enough to enlist. The next thing he knew he was behind a table turned up on its side, defensive position, braced with Mitchell and Ronon, all of them reaching for weapons they weren’t carrying. A second later, Ronon had a knife in his hand.

“Fucking amateurs,” Mitchell said. “What the hell do they want?

John glanced around, surprised and gratified to see how many others had set up defensive positions. Every table was up on its side. He heard some voices protesting, but it went quiet pretty quickly. He couldn’t see Rodney and his fellow particles, but he was pretty sure they were already planning how to weaponize the DJ station. 

“Alright!” a yell sounded from where the militia was gathered inside the door. It didn’t sound like they’d moved farther in, and John wondered if they’d expected cowed civilians, not the battle-ready defenses the tables had been turned into.

“What do you want?” Sam Carter called back from somewhere across the room.

“The truth! Aliens are on earth!”

“Yeah!” yelled another voice. “We spiked the punch so you wouldn’t be able to lie to us!” 

“You have got to be kidding me!” The indignant voice was Rodney. “Of course there are aliens on earth. Who the hell do you think we are, the Student Gaming Council?” There was a pause, and then John heard Rodney say, “Oh crap. They did spike the punch.”

Mitchell looked at Ronon and John, looking like he was about to laugh and whispered, “We should stand up and neuralyze them. Plus,” he nodded toward Ronon, “we have an alien.”

#

“Rodney, shut up!” Sam Carter hissed in his ear, the brim of her witch’s hat poking into his temple. They were behind the bar with the rest of Rodney’s costume team. The hotel bartender cowered in the corner, and Bill Lee was fingering the 151 rum muttering about Molotov cocktails. “And you,” she said to Lee, “stop it. We need to get out of this without burning the place down.” She turned back to Rodney. “How many did you see?”

Rodney thought for a moment. The instincts Sheppard had tried to drill into him seemed to have sunk in more than he realized. He’d done the head count while diving for cover. Huh. “I think twenty-two.”

“I got about that, too,” she nodded, then glanced around the bar. “Any idea how to get out of this without killing anyone?”

“Get to the DJ station and send an ultrasonic pulse,” Rodney said without thinking.

“That’ll hurt our people, too. 

“Come on!” yelled a voice. “Don’t make us start shooting!”

“Yeah. Aliens. The truth!”

Kusinagi looked up from her cell phone. “No way to call. They have used a jammer.”

“Um,” the bartender said. They all turned to look at him and he seemed to shrink further. “There’s a house phone.” He pointed. A corded phone hung on the wall, but it was above the bar top. No easy way to get to it or dial, Rodney thought, without exposing himself to the idiots with the guns and no training.

Sam was already moving, though, looking through the cabinets under the bar. She pulled out a tray, looked at it and then up to the phone. She nodded, satisfied. “I can knock the handset down with this, but we need something to dial the numbers. Long and rigid,” she said.

Lee made a choked sound, and it took Rodney a minute to catch up, then he started laughing. Sam looked at them witheringly, but Kusinagi struggled to keep from laughing, too. Sam asked, “Did you all drink the punch?” Rodney nodded, glancing at Lee and Kusinagi who looked guilty. Sam looked pained and then snorted a laugh. “Yeah. Me, too. Any ideas for dialing the phone?”

Any answer was drowned out by shouting and the sounds of Mitchell’s voice. “Okay. You got us.” There were shouts and _holy shit_ noises. Rodney peeked around the edge of the bar. Mitchell, Sheppard and Ronon had all stood up, and Sheppard was twirling the fake neuralyzer thing in his fingers. The militia men looked genuinely shocked. Rodney pulled his head back before he could give himself away and hid his head in his hands to muffle the combination of laughter, anger, and terror that threatened to come out of his mouth. He was scared the red necks would shoot, and pissed at Sheppard for taking the risk, but the look on the militia’s face had totally been worth it.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked.

“Sheppard,” Rodney managed to get out. “Men in Black. Costume.”

“And they’re trying to play off that?”

“Yeah.”

Sam looked thoughtful. “Let’s use the diversion. Rodney, you and Miko go to the DJ station and work on a sonic weapon. Let people know it’s coming. Bill and I will call out for help and see if we can’t do something with the liquor. I have an idea.” Rodney nodded, then leaned over and took the pen out of the bartender’s front pocket. “I’ll need that.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he heard someone say.

“No,” Ronon said. “I’m not from around here.”

“He really isn’t,” Mitchell said.

“Prove it! You got tentacles hidden or somethin’?”

Sam said, “Go!”

Rodney scrambled out from behind the bar. Every single table was on its side, table cloths and Mardi Gras beads in a jumble on the floor. It said something that even at a party, even drugged, SGC personnel could take up defensive positions that fast. Some of the people looked scared, and Rodney assumed they were spouses. Some looked pissed, and they could have been spouse or personnel. Rodney kept low, moving from table to table for cover, nodding at the people he recognized as he went. Kusinagi let each group know the plan. One group was dressed as Jaffa, and Rodney recognized them as a gate team made mostly of Marines. They were with Dr. Novak, who wore some outlandish headdress and wig over Egyptian robes. “Dr. McKay,” she whispered. “I can make my eyes do the thing. Should we give them more aliens to distract them?”

“The thing?” Rodney stared at her for a moment, and then Novak made it look like her eyes flashed gold, but it was Kusinagi who answered. “That will be funny to talk about later. You should do it.”

“And move on my signal,” Rodney added, a plan forming in his head. 

“And do what?”

“You’ll know.”

They waited while Novak’s group stood up and stepped out from the table, then scooted to the next group, ignoring the surprised muttering from the militia. Only two more tables to go and they’d be at the DJ stand, and he could probably find someone brave enough to turn out the lights.

#

“I have had enough!” came an imperious voice with a strange echo.

John turned back to see a small woman dressed like an Egyptian flanked by four bare-chested Marines in skirts, boots and body glitter, carrying staffs. The woman’s eyes flashed gold. She marched forward through the maze of upturned tables, stepping on cups, imperious, her guards wearing their best _don’t fuck with us_ Marine faces under drawn-on Jaffaa tattoos. John glanced at Mitchell, whose his lips were pressed together to keep from laughing. Jesus, was John the only one who hadn’t drunk the punch?

“Who are these cretins who have interrupted our revels?” the woman asked in her echo-y voice. Her skin glistened gold under the Egyptian headdress, and her face was vaguely familiar under the thick eyeliner and glitter. John saw her eyes flash gold again. If he hadn’t had guns pointed at him, he’d take time to admire how clever it was.

Ronon was the one who reacted first. “Goddess.” John was pretty sure Ronon had no more idea who this was than he did, but he knew Ronon had read SGC mission reports like they were dime novels. He could do the Goa’uld thing.

Mitchell bowed. “Apologies, my lady. As you know, most of our planet is unaware that such beings as you walk among us.” John had to keep his jaw from dropping. He’d never heard Mitchell speak like this in his life, but there was a glint in his eye, and Mitchell was clearly struggling to keep the Men in Black deadpan face. Almost every one of the militia had their jaw hanging open.

John looked at the woman again, and it hit him who she was. Lindsey Novak, the nervous little spaceship engineer, and not a hiccup to be heard. 

“Holeee shit,” a man with a scraggly beard and potbelly said as the bare-chested Marines lit up the ends of their staff weapons. “What the hell is that?” someone else muttered. 

“Your worst nightmare,” Rodney’s voice boomed over the sound system. “Now!”

The opening guitar riff from “Satisfaction” blared out louder than a jet engine and the lights went off. The only thing John could see were a few glowing shapes coming out from behind tables and the bar. The music got behind his jaw and rattled his sinuses, and he recognized the body sensations of the combination of subsonics and harmonic overtones Rodney had managed to get out of the sound system. SGC trained for sonic weapons, but knowing the source didn’t stop the feeling that he really wanted to hit something. Subsonics usually induced fear, but the SGC conditioned its people to recognize it and channel the fear to action. The Marines rushed forward, so John, Mitchell and Ronon followed. John disarmed one of the fat-bellied invaders and then popped him under the jaw with the butt of his own rifle. It felt like an AK-47, but slightly lighter weight, a different balance. Probably a .22 caliber refit, a baby machine gun. How cute. 

There were a few gunshots and one scream of pain, but mostly it was chaos in the dark as the rest of the SGC rushed forward to help subdue the attackers, the augmented Rolling Stones blaring at damaging levels and the glowing people just freaky to watch. John put another idiot down with a sweep kick that cost him almost no effort. 

The lights came up, the music cut abruptly, and General O’Neill’s voice rang out of the PA. “Okay, that’s enough.” The sudden brightness made John’s eyes hurt, but he dealt with it. The sudden chorus of grunts and calls made John think those who’d been drugged weren’t dealing as well. And that seemed like almost everybody. 

“Seriously, McKay,” Sam called out, facing the back of the room and the DJ station. He could still see a green glow on the black of her witch costume, even in the brighter lights. “You call that a sonic weapon?”

“You don’t?” he shouted back. “That’s the single most deadly guitar riff in all of ‘music’.” Rodney air-quoted _music_. “Have you ever analyzed the sonic spectrum? I boosted the bass for good subsonics and added in—”

“Kids,” O’Neill called in a warning voice. He was standing next to McKay on the DJ station, flanked by several other people, none in uniform, but all with that bearing of command. John assumed they were the brass from the poker game Mitchell had mentioned. 

John looked around. The militia members were all on the ground, many of them being sat on by SGC personnel in costume. Ronon and Mitchell were grinning at each other, clearly worked up by the fight, Ronon with his foot on the back of some fallen foe. He reached down and grabbed the man by the collar, lifting him to his feet with the sound of tearing fabric. He held him off the ground momentarily, then set him on his feet with a derisive snort. “Dude,” he said, “it’s a costume party. I’m from Hawai’i.”

Novak made her eyes flash again, and John caught O’Neill and several other people flinch, but she laughed and pointed to her head-dress. “Mini projectors!”

Sam and Lee held out their iridescent green arms, gesturing toward a few other people with a similar glow. “The chemistry is quite simple.” She was nearly gushing and John had a feeling she’d more than sampled the punch. “There are elements in some of the liquors that can combine for a fluorescent reaction,” she started, but O’Neill cut her off, using the DJ microphone.

“I think the party’s over.”

There was a general uproar of objection, and Rodney grabbed the mic from O’Neill. “Not without the costume contest.”

“Sir,” John said, loping across the ball room to talk directly with O’Neill. “They spiked the punch with a truth serum drug. Definitely a dis-inhibitor. It might help to let the party go until it wears off. Just keep people contained in here. Shut down the bar and get rid of the punch.”

O’Neill looked at him. “Did you try the punch?” John shook his head. “Good man. You’re in charge. I have MPs on the way to pick up these bad boys. And figure out how this happened.”

John took a breath, but took the plunge. “Maybe counseling for these folks after? People are saying things they normally wouldn’t. If they drank the punch,” John clarified, trying not to remember what Mitchell and Ronon had said.

O’Neill looked at John for a long moment. “Kind of like those off-world missions where they slip you a mickey and the next day everyone pretends they didn’t overshare about that time in 8th grade when someone pissed in their biology project? Or the _other_ kind of letting your hair down?”

It was an oddly specific reference, but John knew exactly what O’Neill meant. He held himself still. If it hadn’t been for one of _those_ missions, he and Ronon would never… “Pretty much both,” he said, glancing around the room at the hundreds of people there. “On a Command-level scale.” John cleared his throat. “I think if we keep them in here, the uh, hair down thing is less likely to progress to…” He didn’t want to finish, but O’Neill did for him.

“Pants down?” O’Neill raised an eyebrow.

“That.”

“Sex Pollen protocol, then.”

John knew what that meant. They’d only needed to invoke it once on Atlantis, and he’d been glad the SGC had a protocol in place. It removed the stigma for Dr. Corrigan, and someone in anthropology had actually hand-made him the SGC standard “Sex Pollen Survivor” T-shirt with a picture of a grinning Mr. Spock.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” a voice rang out, a woman, stalking out of the partygoers and up to the potbellied militia man John had hit earlier. “Chadwell Monroe, you are the biggest idiot! And who is babysitting my kids?”

Even from across the room, John could see the man turn shamefaced as the woman spun around to face the DJ station. “General O’Neill, this is my idiot brother who likes to play soldier and probably has tinfoil under that baseball cap.”

O’Neill leaned over to John and whispered, “Darlene from accounting. Don’t mess with her. She pays for the bullets.”

She’d spun back to to yell at her brother. “What kind of damn fool stuff have you gotten into now?”

She was interrupted by the arrival of the MPs, and she turned the man by his shoulders and shoved him at them. “Make him tell me who’s actually minding my kids!” she yelled.

O’Neill made the announcement for everyone to stay put while the MPs did their work. The partygoers milled around, some setting to work righting the tables. Once all the militia were out of the room, a chant began to well up from the crowd. “Costumes! Costumes! Costumes!”

O’Neill glanced at the other brass, then took up the DJ mic. “Okay, people! Let’s finish your party.”

“Will you judge the costume contest, sir?” It was Lindsey Novak, and John knew she’d never speak up if she weren’t drugged. “We need an impartial judge, not, uh…” she giggled, and now John wondered just how much punch she’d had. “Not compromised!” 

“But he won’t get our joke,” Lee complained.

Someone out of the group of upper brass, a burly black man John didn’t know, said, “I will. Does the twisted yarn indicate spin or quantum tunneling?”

Lee looked delighted. “Spin!”

O’Neill snorted, then spoke up again. “Okay, folks, we have judges. Bar is closed except for soft drinks.” There were groans, but that was the first step of Sex Pollen Protocol—no more intoxicants. “Costume parade at twenty-two thirty.” He stepped down from the chair. “Sheppard, you and the Men in Black go dump that punch if it hasn’t been already. In fact, I think we’ll all stay and judge,” he said, glancing at his fellow brass. 

Another part of the Sex Pollen protocol was to keep people in front of their superior officers until they could be isolated or it wore off. This didn’t work so well with the civilians, but the military members of the SGC were schooled enough that if they couldn’t control themselves in front of the brass, everyone knew they were very, very thoroughly drugged. John hoped that Mitchell and Ronon wouldn’t start up the sex talk again, that all the interruptions and the presence of the brass would have side tracked them. But then again, he had an order to follow, to get rid of the punch, and it had been given to the Men in Black, not just him. He sighed and grabbed Mitchell and Ronon. 

“We need to get rid of the punch,” John said. 

“Okay,” Mitchell said.

Ronon followed them over to the refreshments table, and they found a few people dipping up from the punch bowl. John looked at them and cleared his throat. “Dump it back in, people. It’s drugged.”

“We know, but we can’t get at the bar,” said a small woman in a long red wig. She turned and John saw she’d dressed as a Wraith, the contact lenses giving him a moment’s discomfort. He didn’t recognize her from Atlantis and was ready to get annoyed at her lack of tact. Then he remembered Novak as a Goa’uld. Some of the older SGC people would dislike that about as much as he didn’t like seeing a Wraith queen, even knowing it was someone playing dress up. “They’re taking the booze!” she said. “Can’t party without booze!” John wondered just how much she’d already had. “Plus,” she added in a stage whisper, “LaRue finally talked to me.” She pointed at a burly guy wearing what looked like an attempt at Lucian Alliance clothes, but was probably just his weekend hunting gear with his belt worn over the untucked shirt. He flushed as the woman went on, “I never thought he liked me.”

“Yeah, I think he does,” Mitchell said, and John noted he wasn’t looking at LaRue’s face. 

John felt a flush up his neck and did his best to ignore both of them, and the snorts he heard from Mitchell and Ronon behind him. “Pour it back in the bowl.”

“Back in bowl!” Mitchell said in a funny accent. John recognized the Steve Martin movie he was quoting, and figured that was better than the sexual innuendo. Then he caught Mitchell’s glance, and he leaned in to quote from another part of the movie. “She’s got the whole cast of Gone with the Wind humping in my head.”

“Oooookay,” John said, wondering just how much of the punch Mitchell had had, then cleared his throat and looked at all the drinkers. John watched as several red cups upended themselves over the mostly-empty bowl. 

He picked up the bowl and headed toward what he hoped was the back door by the kitchens. They needed to find a sink to dump what was left and they needed to check to make sure there wasn’t any more in the back. A hand clutching a red cup snaked over the rim to try to dip some out, but John raised the bowl up over his head. He had no idea what they looked like parading through the crowd, three Men in Black holding a punch bowl like a trophy.

They got to a door, and Mitchell opened it for him. It led to a hallway, wallpapered like the rest of the hotel, but now guarded by two MPs.John looked both ways to find the kitchen. They turned right and the corridor went on for thirty or forty feet before meeting a set of doors. They opened into a white-painted corridor, the carpet giving way to tile. John heard the sounds of the kitchen to the right, military voices raised. John figured they were securing the kitchen staff. He started to turn toward the swinging doors at the end of the hall, but Mitchell grabbed his arm. “Here,” he said, leading off to the left then disappearing into what looked like an alcove. “This’ll do.” 

John followed and saw Mitchell holding open the door to a men’s rom, much more utilitarian than the ones in the public spaces, with a urinal on the wall and a toilet stall. He shrugged and stepped inside, taking the bowl to the sink and dumping it. As he poured, he saw the movement in the mirror before he felt Ronon’s big hands on his hips. John looked up to watch Ronon lean down and whisper in his ear. “Fight got me worked up.” Ronon pressed in with his hips and John was trapped against the sink, holding the upended punch bowl, looking at himself and Ronon in the mirror. Ronon smiled his wolf smile, full of want, and John saw himself looking startled and grim and hungry all at once. He knew what was going on, that Ronon was drugged, and he also knew that much of what Ronon wanted, he wanted too. Just not here. Not now.

And then Mitchell came up to his side. They’d all lost the sunglasses somewhere in the fight in the dark, but the matching suits and ties seemed to pull together the picture in the mirror frame, making it seem like something more than just a reflection in a stark bathroom, like the beginning of some parody porn movie when Mitchell leaned in and licked John behind the ear. Ronon’s hand moved up John’s flank. John closed his eyes and swallowed and managed to say, “No.” Ronon and Mitchell backed away immediately, and John opened his eyes to see a flash of shame over Mitchell’s face in the mirror. Ronon’s expression was blank. 

“Sorry, John. I… Drugs,” Mitchell said, stepping back. 

John reached out a hand behind him, groping a bit but finding Ronon’s hip while he reached out in front of him to put a hand on Mitchell’s arm, stilling his movement. “Ronon and I,” John started, looking at Mitchell, who was looking away.

“I get it,” Mitchell said. “I’m sorry.”

“But,” John started, remembering the look the two had been giving him in the ballroom, before the idiots burst in, and just now in the mirror. Being looked at like that scared him and turned him on in equal measure. “Hold that thought,” he said. “If you still want this when the drugs wear off…”

John watched the expressions flit over Mitchell’s face, felt Ronon slide his hand back around, squeezing John’s hip then spreading across his belly to pull him in. John didn’t know if it was possession or something else, so he said, “If Ronon’s still interested… Then, maybe—“

He was interrupted by Mitchell stepping close, knocking the punch bowl out of his hands and kissing him, of all things. John barely had time to react and respond before Ronon squeezed him in, his other hand sliding up the back of Mitchell’s head, and John was sandwiched between them, barely able to breathe, the sound in his ears of the empty plastic punch bowl hitting the ground and wobbling. Ronon growled in John’s ear. “Put you in the middle.”

“Make you see stars,” Mitchell added, pulling back from the kiss just enough to speak.

“Gonna see ‘em soon if you don’t let go,” John gasped out. The pressure eased immediately, and Ronon and Mitchell backed off.

“Sorry,” he heard them both say. Mitchell picked up the punch bowl and put it in his hands, smoothing down the shoulders of John’s suit, then Ronon’s, like he could suddenly make everything all normal if they were wrinkle-free.

“Let’s give the bowl back to the kitchens, make sure they dump any punch they have left and go back to the costume contest,” John said, trying to keep his voice even.

“Then you come to my place,” Mitchell said, that hungry look in his eyes.

“Yes,” John said, and he heard Ronon’s soft growl, his sex growl. John swallowed and said, “And we sleep it off,” John said. “Just sleep.”

He pulled open the door to the hall, hearing near identical whines behind him.

#

“We can’t start without everyone,” Sam said, still glowing faintly around the endges and smelling strongly of melon. “Mitchell and crew aren’t here. I have their dark glasses.”

Rodney looked around. Everyone who wanted to be judged for costumes was lining up. About half the people stayed in the middle of the room, apparently having deemed their own costumes too lame to compete. He had to agree. 

Kusinagi, Lee, Zelenka and Rodney were ready to go. They’d even practiced their dance one more time. 

“There!” Lee said, pointing at the trio in dark suits. If Rodney wasn’t imagining things, Sheppard’s hair looked even more disheveled than usual. Sam went over to give them their glasses, and the three of them put them on at the same time, settling them on expressionless faces. Rodney hated to admit it, but they looked pretty cool, even if it wasn’t creative, and part of him wondered how the militia had felt at seeing real Men in Black. Who were real work-with-aliens people, now that Rodney thought about it, and then he started laughing.

“What is funny?” Kusinagi said.

“Them,” Rodney gestured. “The did the whole sunglasse-at-the-same-time thing.”

“You secretly like that movie,” Kusinagi said, narrowing her eyes. “So, while you cannot lie: Back to the Future? Do you like it?”

Rodney couldn’t summon his usual insults. Damn drugs. He loved that movie. “When I was a kid I wanted to be both Doc Brown _and_ Marty McFly.”

“I knew it! How many times have you seen it?” Zelenka asked. 

“Twenty-seven,” Rodney admitted. 

“He insults Colonel Sheppard over that movie all of the time,” Zelenka said to Lee.

“Not all the time,” Rodney grumbled, but they were interrupted by O’Neill’s voice. 

“Time for the costume parade!” Music started up again and the loose queue tightened up. Rodney’ group was at about the middle of the pack, and he looked around for Sheppard, spotting Ronon back toward the end of the line.

Rodney watched as people went by. Some were committed to the part, like Lindsey Novak and her Jaffa. She stood imperiously and flashed her eyes, and her modified voices called them all to worship her, looking pleased and haughty at the applause. Others seemed like they were having fun, like the Little Mermaid group. When Rodney’s group hit the stage, they did their dance of the wave harmonics, and Admiral Foster cracked up, clearly getting the joke, but only Sam and a few other physicists clapped. When Sheppard, Ronon and Mitchell stepped up, Sheppard flashed his neuralyzer light, saying, “Swamp gas.” The three of them turned, expressionless, and walked off the stage to wild cheers.

“We may lose this,” Lee muttered.

When the parade line finished, O’Neill leaned in to confer with the brass. They spoke for a few moments, nodding, then turned to face the audience. “We’ve decided to give prizes in categories. Best PTSD-inducing outfit goes to Dr. Novak’s Goa’uld and her crew of Jaffa, Corporal Bates, Lieutenant Fischer, Private Barnes and Jake from accounting.” There were catcalls and applause. “Best costumes to lighten the tone goes to Lieutenant Laura Cadman as the Little Mermaid and her crew.” O’Neill named all the people in her group, who were dressed as a crab, chef and something else Rodney couldn’t make out. “Best geek prize goes to Drs McKay, Lee, Zelenka and Kusinagi.” 

Rodney jumped up and down holding hands with Lee and Kusinagi, Zelenka at the end. “Yes!” they shouted, but the applause was faint.

“Given the events of the evening,” O’Neill said, “we think the prize for, well, foresight in costume choice should go to Colonel Sheppard, Colonel Mitchell, and Specialist Dex for their Men in Black.” The applause broke out wildly again. Rodney snorted. 

“Oh, come on,” Lee said, “you have to admit it was pretty funny when they stood up and pretended to be real government Men in Black.”

#

John woke up to the smell of bacon, feeling hot in the bed with a face full of dreadlocks. It took him a moment, but this was Mitchell’s apartment, and he and Ronon were in the guest room. He wasn’t used to sleeping with anyone, and he went stiff when Ronon rolled over and reached out, pulling John in close, rumbling, “Good morning.”

“Hey,” John managed to say, feeling the line of Ronon’s morning wood along his hip.

“Nice,” Ronon said, gentling John with a sweep of his hand. He started to relax in spite of himself. “Like waking up with you.”

“You still drugged?” John asked.

“Doesn’t feel like it. Don’t need drugs to tell the truth.”

Truth. “Look. Our thing…” John started.

“It’s our thing. I don’t need to talk about it. We’re us. There’s room. I like him. Could be fun.” It took John a second. He was just talking about him and Ronon and the years of the thing they just did and never discussed. Ronon was already talking about Mitchell and what happened last night. What could happen this morning.

“So that wasn’t just the drugs talking,” John said.

Ronon rolled over him, pinning John the way he liked, kissing him the way John wanted to be kissed, the way John felt like no one else could ever kiss him. Finally Ronon pulled back. “No, not just the drugs.” 

John swallowed. “This thing. Our thing,” he started. “This is all I want. Ever.”

“John Sheppard,” Ronon said, pushing himself up to look down on John, “you mean that?”

John nodded, hoping Ronon understood just how big this was for John. “I do,” he said deliberately, and he meant it more than he had when he’d said it to Nancy at their wedding.

Ronon kissed him. “Then this thing is our thing,” he said, his face looking serious. “You. Me.” Ronon lowered more of his weight on John, their groins pressed together, but John was too scared to be hard, and Ronon’s morning erection seemed to have flagged. They looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment, and John felt both exposed and _seen _. Ronon got him, he knew, but the look in his eyes was hard to take. John broke the gaze by reaching up for another kiss, which Ronon took and gave and they melted together, the first time to enjoy this without any urgency. After a long moment Ronon broke the kiss and hugged John, his face nuzzled into John’s neck. “We just get married?” he whispered, shaking with laughter.__

__John froze, his heart in his throat, not knowing if Ronon was teasing or serious. “It’s our thing,” he said. “Doesn’t need a name, right?”_ _

__“Okay,” Ronon said. “Okay. I do, too. Alright?" He pulled back and looked into John's eyes. "I do.”_ _

__And John’s chest felt like it wanted to explode, and something was in his eyes, and he flipped Ronon on to his side and pulled him in. “Yeah.”_ _

__They lay entwined until John pulled himself together. “I smell bacon,” he finally said._ _

__“Yep,” Ronon said. “Smells like Mitchell’s cooking.”_ _

__“About Mitchell,” John started. “Room?” he said, using Ronon’s word, and not sure what Ronon had meant. Room for him to be in, as in all the way in, or room between John and Ronon to just…John didn’t know. Maybe the word was play?_ _

__“You don’t think that would be hot?” Ronon asked._ _

__“Uh, yeah,” John said, unwilling to lie. “But just hot or, y’know, a thing?”_ _

__“Don’t think he wants a thing. Just hot.”_ _

__“So our wedding morning could be a casual threesome?” John blurted out, sitting bolt upright._ _

__Ronon rolled on his back and laughed, loud and long, and John couldn’t help but laugh, too. Then the door opened and Mitchell stood there wearing just an apron and holding a spatula. “Good. You’re awake. Darlene from Accounting’s idiot brother confessed all, and was suitably impressed by the boring banks of computers in Deep Space Telemetry, but he’s still under arrest. He bribed one of the kitchen staff to spike the drinks, and that may be the end of any off-base parties without kids. Jack says they’re chasing down who got him the drugs and the jammer tech. Breakfast is almost ready. I left you T-shirts and sweats in the bathroom.” Mitchell paused and grinned. “But don’t feel you _have_ to use them.” He closed the door, leaving John staring. Apron?_ _

__“His sweats aren’t gonna fit me anyway,” Ronon said. John choked a bit, and Ronon slapped him on the back then ruffled his hair. “Let’s get up. See where it goes.”_ _


End file.
